Deuteronomy 32:16; “They provoked him to jealousy with strange gods…”
The phrase “They provoked him to jealousy with strange gods” is only two words in the Hebrew: Yikeni’ahu bizim. Jack Benny had a routine where he was in some far off jungle and found himself the potential meal for some cannibals. In desperation he told his guide to tell the cannibals that he was from a far away country bearing great gifts that would bring joy to them all. The guide translated to the cannibals : Um ba.” Jack Benny said to his guide: “That’s it, all that in just Um ba? Isn’t there an ula booga in there?” I tend to feel the same way when I see passages in Hebrew that have one or two Hebrew words but translate out into a dozen English words. It is fairly obvious that the translators are throwing in a little commentary of their own. As one Bible Translator told me all modern translations of the Bible are at best paraphrases. Some just openly admit it. Needless to say, there is plenty of ambiguity in these two words to allow us to look at different options in how we would render this passage.
The first word is yikeni’ahu for provoked. This word is in a Hipihal form. This verbal form makes the word causative. He was caused to be jealous. Translators felt you needed something stronger so rather than say He was caused to be jealous, they say He was provoked to jealousy. However, the spelling of the word yikeni which is rooted in ka’as is defective, that is that it is an earlier form of the word before full spelling of the Biblical Hebrew was developed. This would suggest a broader rendering to encompass the meaning of the root word ka’as which in its Semitic origins is used to express the idea of a romantic rival, or a measuring stick. The translators intensified the causative to provoked purely for contextual reasons rather than grammatical. Had the writer intended to intensify the causative he would have made this an infinitive or added a paragogic but this is not indicated in the text. Thus, this provoking business is purely man’s interpretation and therefore open to question, disagreement and argument, which I intend to do.
I say that there is no reason to use the intense form of kana jealousy which is to say God is jealous, nor do I see any reason to upgrade this word kana to a level of jealousy when grammatically no intensity is indicated and other optional renderings for kana would seem more appropriate. To say God is provoked to jealousy by other gods, would suggest God is somehow insecure and threatened by these other gods. Rather than say they caused Him to become jealous I would prefer a more scaled down rendering: “They caused Him to become a measuring rod or a rival to strange gods.” The difference in this rendering moves you from a God who becomes irrational ready to shoot down His unfaithful mate and her lover, to a God who is looking in a mirror asking: “What does this god have that I don’t have. Am I not good enough for you?” In other words the traditional rendering of this passage suggest an enraged God over an unfaithful lover rather than a God who is heart broken over His lover’s unfaithfulness. I find this latter rendering fits my style better as I like to think I am faithful to Him not because I fear He will take a rolling pin to my head if he catches me with another god, but rather because I fear I will break His heart.
But say, notice that the word elohim or god is not in the Hebrew text of this verse. Again translators put that in there for reasons of context. Yet, the word used is simply: zavar which has the idea of loathsome. It is also the word used for a harlot or to bind a wound. I once worked an evening job as a security officer in a residential high rise in downtown Chicago on Lake Shore Drive. The building is located in what the news media calls the Viagra Triangle. I recall that about 4:00 AM on almost a regular basis I had to allow a resident’s “daughter” who was a young, attractive, college aged, woman who look like she just got off the bus from Kansas into the building to visit her “father” a rather prosperous, high profile resident. This resident would call fifteen minutes before her arrival earlier asking that I reserve a parking space for two hours for his daughter and to allow her to enter without checking her ID. Over the passing days I found this prosperous resident had many such daughters all of almost the same age. My guess is that she just didn’t get off the bus from Kansas but had been around for a while. Still I thought I would mention this as that fits a zavar.
This strange god or zavar that is mentioned in Deuteronomy 32:16 is anything or anyone who provides temporary relief from our needs, fears, or hurts. Most the time it is very attractive and promising. However, this strange god is just a bandage. It is a god that will break the heart of our God like a man can break his wife’s heart when he turns to a zavar. When we turn to this zavar to meet our needs or heal our wounds we are committing spiritual adultery. Our God stands ready and longing to meet our needs and desires, to heal our wounds. He stands ready with open arms while we rush off to a rival god. We pull out a measuring stick and figure we will go to the god that we think will offer us the best deal. I know I tend to be like that little child who will run for a dinner of cream puffs and cakes rather than the fruits and vegetables offered by the loving parent. Then I go running to the loving parent when I have a belly ache.
To me this passage is telling us that our God is a jealous God only in the sense that He longs to give us the best and is heart broken when we settle for anything less.
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